footsteps faded.
“You okay?” Dec asked.
I raked my fingers through my hair and nodded. “Yeah. Are you?”
“Mmm. She looks good.”
“No, she doesn’t. She’s too pale and she tires so easily. It freaks me out to see her like this. Thanks for coming. You really did make her day.”
“Thanks for inviting me.”
“Technically, I didn’t invite you. We had a deal,” I snarked, fixating on his mouth.
“Right. I forgot about that,” he hummed.
I set the dish towel on the counter and glanced around the spotless kitchen. It was a large space with oak cabinetry, speckled granite countertops, and lots of nooks and crannies for Mom’s knickknacks. There were built-in shelves throughout the house filled with books, framed photos, and things we’d randomly collected over the years and decided were treasures. Seashells, rocks…you get the idea.
This wasn’t a house. It was home in the deepest sense of the word. The hint of illness and unease in this safe haven overwhelmed me. It felt oddly comforting to have Declan there.
I didn’t stop to register any significance. Nor did I think twice about the fact that he seemed to belong here. A house knows when a stranger has entered, but this house welcomed him. It wasn’t just my mom. It was as if the kitchen walls remembered his voice and the sound of his laughter. I wondered if it would feel as intense in other rooms.
“Come on. Let’s check out the garage for old times’ sake.”
8
Declan
The Monroes’ garage looked the same but different. Just like everything about my visit so far. Nothing had intrinsically changed—however, the years of living and growing had woven an unfamiliar pattern. Taller trees, new furniture, more photos…many featuring small kids I assumed belonged to T’s oldest sister, Rachel. It was a warm and happy place like it always had been.
But the garage was the room where time stood still.
Bass, acoustic, and electric guitars were propped on stands near the same damn kit that had been here on my last visit. I recognized the sticker from a local gym on the front of the bass drum. It was faded and smaller than ones he must have added later. I noted the remnants of a Gypsy Coma sticker. I wisely held my tongue as I continued snooping while T settled on his stool and tapped a slow, jazzy beat.
I smiled at the old dart board, then poked through the neatly arranged tools on the opposite end of the space before checking out the array of bicycles in the back that obviously hadn’t been ridden in a while. The seats were dusty, and the wheels were covered in cobwebs. I couldn’t help but compare it to my mom and Sam’s ten-car garage filled with European luxury vehicles they rarely drove. It was almost clinically clean. No spider would dare spin a web there. Funny enough, I preferred this familial hodgepodge collection. It was…real. There was nothing to hide. Everything pretty and ugly was out in the open.
I turned when Tegan picked up the pace. His thick biceps bunched and flexed, straining the seams of his blue plaid button-down. I licked my lips, unconsciously admiring his dexterity. T was a great drummer. He had a gift for enhancing a beat with kickass fillers that added a measure of drama or emotion to a song. It was a crucial ingredient in creating a signature sound. Zero was lucky to have him, I mused as I picked up the electric guitar.
“Mind if I join in?” I asked, plugging into the amp.
He grunted, slowing down again. Boom, boom, tap. Boom, boom, tap, tap… “What are we playing?”
“You lead. I’ll follow.”
This time, he smiled. A real smile. His eyes and lips were fully involved in the gesture, and damn, I think I blushed. I adjusted the strap and glanced at the strings just in case my cheeks were red.
“All right, hotshot. Here we go,” he said.
Tegan jumped straight into a quick jazz-style drum lick at a medium tempo. I studied jazz and musical theory in college. I knew where and how to add melody. However, this was freestyle play. We were making shit up on the fly. And the musician in me loved everything about it. This was the kind of exercise that tested your stamina, your instincts, and your reflexes. It was completely different than crafting a song. My personal process was painstaking. I wrote lyrics on a notepad while I tested notes on my guitar. I erased and started over so often that I couldn’t always read